


Like Father, Like Son

by larkofchaos



Series: Henry Oak and his Boys [4]
Category: Dungeons and Daddies (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, I just think trans Oaks are neats, No Proofreading We Die Like Men, but the dndads demon awakened in me and i needed to write trans lark coming out fic, it is passed my bed time, litch rally i've wrriten this late at night, no i'm not projecting onto my favorite two oaks what do you mEAN
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28023357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larkofchaos/pseuds/larkofchaos
Summary: Lark knew his family would accept him with open arms when he started planning to come out as a trans man. But, the issue was in actually doing it.
Relationships: Henry Oak & Lark Oak, Henry Oak/Mercedes Oak-Garcia, Lark Oak & Mercedes Oak-Garcia, Lark Oak & Sparrow Oak
Series: Henry Oak and his Boys [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1891336
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	Like Father, Like Son

**Author's Note:**

> cw; neurodivergent meltdown, unclear if it's positive or negative, cause it's a little mixed bowl of a meltdown. 
> 
> I am prefacing this with if any of the like- Spanish names/petnames used in this are incorrect; I do not speak Spanish and I did the best research I could? It just felt wrong having the twins call Mercedes and Henry 'mom and dad' so I did digging to try and find colloquials that felt fitting. 
> 
> also the rikki tikki thing is not my idea, I stole it off a friend in Discord who speaks some basic Spanish and suggested it.

Lark’s parents had never really forced any gender on him or his brother. They referred to them by their birth assigned sexes and made it clear that if they ever wanted to change it, they were free to do so. Lark has always been appreciative of that. He also remembers when he was around eight, his dad coming out as trans himself and transitioning from female to male. It’s hard to picture his dad as a woman, the memory would be lost if it weren’t for old photos to keep the memory of his pre-coming out days alive. So, Lark knows his parents won’t blink twice if he tells them he’s not…. Female. He knows that. He also knows that’s been a concern of theirs, since gender dysphoria is theorized to be hereditary in assigned female peoples, and Henry was the one who was pregnant. The likelihood of Lark, the assigned female twin, being trans, were higher than normal. 

That knowledge doesn’t make the idea of coming out any less terrifying to think about. 

He could see them. Laughing in the kitchen and being their usual lovey-dovey selves as they cooked dinner together. Moving seamlessly around each other with an ease only gained after two decades of doing it. Amá laughed and threw a piece of carrot at Papi, who snickered and nudged her before returning to his… Whatever he was doing. Lark wondered if now was a good time to do this. But, he also knew that if he chickened out, he’d be a coward and Sparrow would never let him forget that. 

“[Lark]! You wanna help us with dinner, cub?” Papi asked, turning around with that big smile he always had. He was so welcoming, so inviting. Lark had never felt scared to hang out and help his parents before. Never felt uncomfortable in their presence or scared to talk to them before. So why did he suddenly feel like an alien on a new planet? He was no alien. He was no new occurrence in the Oak household. Hell, he watched his dad go from a woman to a nearly fully transitioned man over the course of the last eight years. He was just round two. 

“Honey, you look stressed. Are you okay?” His mother asked. He felt the words swimming in his head and not fully processing. He wiped his hands on his jeans and nodded. Coming up next to his parents to wash his hands in the sink and help out with whatever they needed. He could tell them tomorrow. One more day won’t hurt. 

“Yeah, Amá. I’m okay. I’m just a little tired. How can I assist you?” He asked, shaking some spare water off his hands. The cold water helped Lark feel a bit calmer, but he knew the cold water would bite him back if he didn’t get it off his hands and moisturize after this.   
“Just help your father chop up veggies, please, love.” Mercedes ruffled his hair and went to turn on the stove and set some tea on to boil. 

And now, Lark found himself standing next to his dad, in a mostly comfortable silence as they sliced up celery and carrots. He could piece together that they were making potato soup tonight, and he liked that. Potato soup was nice. 

The words were clawing at his throat as he cut the celery. Each second passed like an hour as he thought and rethought how to say this. If he should say this. Maybe he could bury it down deep deep into his soul and never think about it again, go back to being she. Tell Sparrow it was just confusion. Maybe he could- 

“Tikki? Are you really okay? You look ready to cry.” Papi stopped chopping his carrots. Lark wished he was back in Faerun, where he could end this with a duel and it would be normal. But he can’t do that. He has to face his problems. His emotions. His stupid fucking emotions that more often than not manifested in him wanting to tear his skin of and reshape his body into a way that made sense, even if it wasn’t physically possible or pliable that a human body would look like he wanted to look. Lark didn’t feel human most days. 

“I um… Can I-” He thought over his next words carefully. If he really wanted to have this conversation right now. Right here. His father’s hand on his back and his mother making tea. His twin was upstairs playing video games, listening in to make sure Lark didn’t die. “Papi, how did you know?” 

“How did I know what, Tikki?” 

“That you weren’t- weren’t female.” And his father paused for a moment. Thought about it. 

“Well, [Lark], I didn’t feel comfortable in myself. I didn’t feel confident or happy, or like me at all. And, when I really thought about it, and looked into it, and researched it, I knew that- that I was trans. That I was- well, Henry. Why do you ask?” Lark’s hands were shaking. Shaking so bad he made himself put down the knife and wipe his hands on his pants. And again. 

“I- I wanna be- no. No that’s not how I wanna say that.” Lark paused for a moment. The kitchen was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Both parents held their breath for Lark to finish his thought before they said anything. Lark could feel the tears, could feel the familiar feeling of his skin heating up and the touch of his father on his back feeling like a hot iron. His chest caving in and his knees feeling weak. The familiar feelings of a meltdown. “I- I think that...  _ I  _ might be trans… Too.” He sounded unsure. He wasn’t unsure. He knew for a fact. But the words were getting all jumbled up. He felt the eyes on him searing holes into his skin. Air felt too heavy. Papi’s hand too warm. Everything too much of something. Everything too much of everything. Too much. He backed himself against the kitchen island, sinking to the floor and stretching his feet straight out in front of him. 

His parents didn’t move to comfort him. Didn’t move to touch him. They had learned over the last fourteen years of raising two neurodivergent kids to not try and hug them or touch them when they started to get overwhelmed. 

Lark could see, however, Papi grabbed the pop-it toy out of a little box they kept next on the counter and sat it in Lark’s lap between his hands. And just as quickly as it was in Lark’s possession, Papi backed away from him to give him space. It was a simple toy. Blue silicon square with little half-moon shapes you popped in and out. It made a satisfying noise too; a pop. But Lark doesn’t want to get repetitive. He listened to the burst of sound each time he popped on half moon in on itself, and it was a good sound. A calming sound. 

It took a minute, but Lark felt okay again. He felt calm. Grounded. He looked up from his nice device to his parents, who were both now sitting on the floor across from him. Dinner long forgotten. Papi went to lay a hand on his ankle, but stopped before he made contact and looked to Lark for consent. Lark pulled his legs inwards and shifted to sit criss-cross instead. A no. 

“So, okay, tikki, you can answer as briefly as you need to, I know you’re probably really anxious right now, I understand. I just- I want to make sure I have it right. Is that okay?” Lark noted that Papi called him the nickname and not his birth name. Tikki. And Sparrow was Rikki. Supposedly, rikki tikki was the sound a hen or a rooster said, but, if that’s a fake phrase, Amá never bothered correcting him on it. “Okay, hon. So, you’ve been having some dysphoria?” Amá asked him, now sitting next to him. But, far enough away he didn;t feel suffocated. They understood him. 

“Y-yeah. A lot.” 

“That’s okay! I get it, cub. So, then, let’s start with basics, name and pronouns?” Papi was sitting almost knee-to-knee with him. But it felt okay. It was okay. This was his kickass trans dad he watched over the course of his life, and is still watching become his true self. 

“L-Lark. H-he/him. Lark, he/him.” It felt both so amazing and terrifying to say it outloud. Like a weight being lifted off his shoulders that he forgot he was carrying. He looked to his parents, and he could see them smiling at him. Patient, understanding,  _ accepting,  _ smiles. 

“So now we have Lark  _ and  _ Sparrow  _ and  _ Hen on occasion? When do I get the cool bird name? I feel like I’m being left out of a club, here, guys!” Lark laughed at his mom’s joke, pulling his knees to his chest and smiling like a doof as he watched the scene play out. 

“Lark really fits you, tikki. Now, if you ever wanna change it, or decide you don’t like Lark, just tell us. It’s all a learning curve and- and-” 

“Henry, you just said you weren’t gonna bombard him!”  _ him.  _ The pronoun seeped into Lark’s soul like syrup filling every divet of fresh pancakes, making him feel like he was now eight million times better (just like syrup and pancakes) and it all felt so right. His parents rocked. He looked up when he heard footsteps come into the doorway. And, Sparrow was standing right there, looking excited and nervous and a bit confused. 

“You did it? You told ‘em? Sibling, please tell me you’ve told them.” 

“I- I told them. Yes.” 

“YES!” 


End file.
